Contrasts in economic growth and immigration policy in Japan, the European Union and the United States

The period since the end of Second World War has seen the longest (albeit interrupted) periods of industrial growth in history. It has also seen the creation of three great industrial blocs: the United States, the European Union and Japan. Of these, the growth of the Japanese economy has been the most spectacular, despite the severe setbacks of the 1990s and the early twenty-first century. In 1996, Japan’s GDP per caput $32,000 was higher than that of the United States ($27,000) or that of Germany ($29,000), the richest of the EU states.